


You Drew Stars Around My Scars

by bifactional_disaster



Category: Lovecraft Country (TV), Lovecraft Country - Matt Ruff
Genre: Eventual Smut, F/F, F/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Finale, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:35:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27462058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bifactional_disaster/pseuds/bifactional_disaster
Summary: Ruby wakes to find Christina is dead, but soon learns that she's left everything to her. But what is it worth without the person she loves?  A five-chapter fic delving into wealth, privilege, love, and identity with my personal guarantee for a happily ever after.
Relationships: Ruby Baptiste/Christina Braithwhite, Ruby Baptiste/William
Comments: 68
Kudos: 168





	1. But Now I’m Bleeding

**October 1, 1955**

The clock on the wall ticked like a tiny pick-ax chinking away at the solid pall of silence that hung in the auditor’s office. The man who sat across the desk from her was both pallid and flushed as if he didn’t believe any of the words that he’d read aloud just moments before. She watched him read it over again, both pages, and she sat, poised in her confidence as he came to the same conclusion he’d sputtered out the first time.

A manila folder, open and spread with documents like a fan, was pushed over to her, a black pen placed upon it. “It seems,” he cleared his throat once, and started over, but faltered and had to begin a third time. “It seems that everything is in order. I will need your initials at each of these points and we will be done.”

Ruby leaned forward to take the heavy fountain pen and smiled a little too sweetly at the man because she knew in this case it was salt in an already stinging wound to his delicate sensitivities. In every blank space, the RB was filled with an extra flourish she hadn’t previously used; it was the slightest curve backward after sealing the B to indicate a name that went on. If things were different, maybe she would have become Ruby Braithwhite, or Christina, in a chance to get away from her family legacy to fully break free, could have become a Baptiste. A lump in her throat formed as she set the pen back down and watched as the ink dried.

Well-manicured hands gathered the papers back up and closed the folder. In its place, he left a small box. “Miss Braithwhite brought this in two weeks ago when she signed the rest of the paperwork.” The auditor added as an afterthought, but with an edge of threat, because it’s all he had left. “I’d be careful if I were you. People might get ideas.”

A long breath was blown out of her nose before she looked up and made eye contact. “Why? Because it looks suspicious that an unmarried, childless white woman would leave everything she had to a black woman of no relation two weeks before her mysterious death? Do you think I killed her?” Ruby asked and tipped her chin defiantly. What she didn't ask, but what was hanging in the air was _Do you think I fucked her?_ She already knew the answer, she could see it painted all over the man’s face—sheer disbelief, coupled with wonder and fear at the idea of someone even trying to kill Christina Braithwhite.

“God no, you coul--” he didn’t even finish before she cut him off.

“Exactly. No one will believe that--not really. Because they know who the fuck she was. And now they’re gonna know who the fuck I am.” She took the box off the desk and swayed out of the office the same way she’d come into it—intentionally seductive; because she knew he’d look, and he’d hate that he was looking. It was an expression that was echoed across a boring variety of pale faces as she strolled out into the lobby of the bank. Most of the women looked disgusted, and the men tried but their eyes lingered a little too long on the curve of her hips in the tight red dress—Christina’s signature color. One of the things she had learned from her time with the witch, was that no matter the situation, there was always a way to manipulate it to make a deeper impact.

William’s powder blue Pontiac was driven with the top down back to the house in Hyde Park. She’d never left and had been awake, but unsteady when Leti, Montrose, and Hippolyta came barreling into the basement. They tried to make her leave with them. Keyword—tried. Upon finding out about Christina’s death, Ruby had become a woman possessed. Montrose had barely been able to keep her away from Leti as the two screamed at each other through inconsolable tears. Finally, the group yielded as Dee yelled from the car while she tried to dab blood out of the creases in her mechanical arm. They had been wise enough not to let that detail slip while Ruby blessed them back up the stairs, down the hallway, and out the front door.

Ruby had never cried so much in her life. The last week had been hell, and in the middle of the night when she instinctively ran her hand over the other side of the bed, searching for William’s strong shoulder or Christina’s narrow one, she always wished she hadn’t woken up. But for the last day or two, she’d been able to get through most of her activities as normal—as long as she didn’t try and say more than a few sentences at a time. When the call came to the house for her to come to the bank, she had feared the worst, initially. But as each asset was read off the list as “fully vested and circumventing any other claim, to Ruby Baptiste”, her heart swelled. Christina had said that she could change her world, and it was a promise she kept.

Heels tapped along the driveway and up to the door, ringing in her ears as loud as her pulse. It wasn’t until she was inside and behind a locked door that she took the small box out of her purse. Opening it revealed a smaller box and finally a hand-folded key envelope. The lock that the key fit wasn’t even something Ruby had to consider—the dark and unnaturally cold metal belonged in that also dark and unnaturally cold basement. That narrowed it down significantly because there wasn’t much that Christina kept locked away behind the heavily bolted door.

The basement was still a nefarious place where Ruby didn’t go. A whole lot of that had to do with the fact that William was still there, lifeless, but alive enough to continue producing blood. Ruby didn’t know what the fuck she was supposed to do with a white man’s body, but it damn sure wasn’t going to be caught hauling it off somewhere. Eventually, she would ask Montrose if he had any shadier connections. Hell, Montrose _was_ the shadier connection. His hands weren’t free of blood. Hers weren’t either. 

She sat down on the edge of the bed, from where she had awoken with the basement key tucked into her palm. Dark eyes looked over at William. He didn’t look like the William that Christina inhabited, and she supposed that’s because he was dead-ish. “She really got us fucked up, huh?” she asked the unresponsive body before she sighed and jerked the curtain back around him.

There was nowhere to use the key on the safe. Filing cabinets and drawers yielded the same result. “Why is everything so complicated with you?!” she huffed in frustration before she noticed that the large leather-bound book next to her on the desk had a lock on the buckle. Ruby rolled her eyes at the wasted effort around the rest of the subterranean hideout and unlocked the book—not a physical mechanism so much as when she put the key in the lock, all of it glowed and then faded and the leather strap fell to the side. She had a feeling that without the key trying to get into the seemingly barely secured book would not be as easy as cutting a leather strap.

When she opened it, there was a folded piece of paper with her name written on the outside. Unfolded, the paper contained Christina’s meticulous handwriting recognizable throughout all of her notes, but it looked hurried as though she had written it at the last minute. Like the last minute after the last memory Ruby had of the Autumnal Equinox, which was getting busted in the dungeon of a lab trying to steal blood for Leti.

_Ruby,_

_If you're reading this, then it means one of the spells I cast on the Equinox went fantastically awry, but one was still successful. I confess I hope that I'm the one reading this and laughing at my own emotional bullshit._

_While I don't presently know the details of my death, I want you to know that I don't regret anything, except maybe walking out of this room._

_A week ago I drafted a new directive for my estate--insurance in case I created a crater at Ardham. I hope you're enjoying it, even if in this moment as I watch you breathing, I am hurt and angry beyond measure. Except, I suppose against a measure of love. I know how far I would go to protect you, so I am trying to rationalize that you would do the same for Leticia. The spell that keeps you now is tied directly to my lifeline and was released upon that line being cut._

_In spite of my ire, I can still see past it, to what I promised you. Money affords a different sort of privilege, as does magic. All of both that I possessed are at your disposal._

_Never let yourself be interrupted again._

_Christina_

Although there wasn't anything endearing about the salutation or signature, it was still the first time Christina had used the word love in relation to Ruby. The rushed print was uncharacteristic of the blonde and a memory returned to Ruby of waking up a little after three o’clock in the morning. It was two days before Christina left for Ardham. “What’re you doin’?” Ruby husked sleepily at the woman sitting at her writing desk. 

“Waxing poetic about all that is beautiful in the world,” Christina mused in a faraway tone, glancing over the rim of her glasses. A narrow face illuminated by the faint blue glow. Her lips formed a slow smile as she watched Ruby, barely awake, try to figure out if she was being serious or sarcastic.

By then, Ruby was used to hearing Christina’s feminine voice cutting through the relative darkness of the room. They hadn’t fucked in their own bodies yet, but sometimes Christina was too tired to go through the transformation twice and would wait until Ruby was asleep before slipping into bed in her own silk gown. She always tried to be out of bed and back in William’s skin before Ruby woke, but on more than one occasion, a nightmare had stirred Ruby from her sleep and when she reached for her lover she found Christina instead. Without fail, Christina would turn and illuminate the room just enough that Ruby could make out all the shapes around them and see there was nothing there. And then she would sit up and talk with her until Ruby fell back asleep. 

Those moments had felt just as intimate as any number of times that she’d been fucking William. She wished now that she’d been braver, let go of her denial. Ruby sighed and let the note fall back to the table. She wondered if this was a second draft letter--if the ‘emotional bullshit’ that Christina referenced in this note was different--and if so, what had the first said? Before the sting of doubt had given way to the fire-hot pain of betrayal which split Christina open.

Ruby felt a similar sense of betrayal in the soul-chilling basement. It came from all angles. If there had been another letter and she’d survived, would she have shown it to Ruby at all? Or would they have continued this dance around each other’s motivations and intentions? If there had been another letter and she died, was Ruby meant to read it and pine over the lover who had ultimately chosen her own ambition to achieve immortality over a single lifetime of happiness with her? Could she even be angry about that? Of course she could--and was.

It weighed heavily upon her as she ascended the stairs and locked the basement again, and for good as far as she was concerned. Too calmly, Ruby drew herself a bath; the first bath she’d taken in the large tub since waking up. She’d been using another bathroom in the house that had a tub-shower combo and austere surroundings void of personality outside of “rich” and “white”. While Christina was both of those things, she had been more. 

The Christina she knew was low lights because she wanted a reprieve from being examined against her father’s dashed hopes for a son in the bright lighting of his office and lab--where she was allowed to exist but not participate. She was oil and perfume in the water because the basement was musty and the chill dried out her delicate skin. Bubbles that popped across her sharp collarbones like a thousand little kisses for the girl starved for affection. The earthy burn of bourbon to make her feel warmth and numb the rest of her senses. She was an array of draped patterns and sumptuous textures because in place of human touch she surrounded herself with things that pleased _her_ to touch. And then when Ruby became a fixture in her home, Christina had become longing and eager service; literally bathing her in affection, at least when she wore Williams's skin because they hadn't navigated their relationship beyond that. 

Ruby poured herself a drink, downed it, and made a second one that she took with her back to the tub. Hot water matched the uncomfortable sear of bourbon in an empty stomach. She promised herself she would cook real food tomorrow instead of empty liquor calories.

Across the room hung Christina's robe and Ruby tipped her glass. A silent cheers to what was left and to what could have been.

And oh how she cried.


	2. Marked Me Like a Bloodstain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A roller coaster of emotions, as grief so often is--complicated by family, also as grief so often is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Song is Sarah Vaughan “Everybody Loves Somebody” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6XsTQZVPhI

Morning came as it inevitably did, and Ruby had spared herself the hangover by not continuing her way down to the bottom of the very expensive bottle of liquor the night before. It only would have served to make her headache worse--a result of several hours of on and off crying throughout the night. It would come in waves and recede long enough to let the bitterness and hurt creep back in. She tried to build a wall around herself with those emotions. Anger was easier to hold on to. Palpable--actionable--a curled fist to strike. What could she do with grief except hold her own limp hand in the other? And yet as carefully as she tried to build them over and over it was a sandcastle moat that filled up with tears until the tide finally broke over it and destroyed the whole thing. No, anger had no place there. So as she swung her legs over the edge of the bed, her feet touched down on emptiness. Like something had been ripped out of her and she had to find something new to put in its place.

  


Her stomach made a warning noise that presented an ultimatum of either putting food in it or gagging up the acid that was there. Ruby decided that option A was the better choice and went down to the kitchen. That ritual, at least, felt normal, even without Christina there. She, usually William, had already left the house by then or had holed themself in the basement to work. The sun was shining and it promised to be a stunning early-autumn day. She should get out, see the sunshine. 

  


The cabinets above the stove were filled with absurdly expensive spices--not her doing, at least not directly. She’d given William shit about not having any cooking spices and he had burrowed his face against her neck and told her she was all the spice he needed. But two days later, the cabinets were filled. Some of the more exotic ones she hadn’t even heard of, but she’d try it anyway on something. Ruby stirred the eggs until they started to clump together and sang as she added pepper and paprika to the fluffy lumps. 

  


“Everybody finds somebody someplace

There's no telling where love may appear

Something in my heart keeps saying

My someplace is here...”

  


Dark eyes stared out the kitchen window. She could see some of her neighbors, but not the asshole in the front. She couldn’t wait for the day that she finally decided to have a party here. She just wanted to see his face, red and blustery as black bodies filed in the front gate. At the very least, she’d wait until the deed was of public record and she had her documents back in case someone had questions about the legitimacy of her domain.

  


All of the eggs were eaten out of the habit of not wasting food, but it was mechanical and she barely tasted them. Her stomach settled from last night’s alcohol, but clenched again and threatened to eject the contents once her body had the energy to feel the jagged edge of grief brushing against her soft, unprotected edges. She had to get out of the house. 

  


When she left, it was in an emerald tea-length dress with floral trim and a coordinating headscarf. The front of the dress plunged lower than it needed to, but this wasn’t one that she had picked out herself. Her wardrobe had grown steadily over the last few months, much of it William presenting her with fancy boxes of custom dresses repeatedly to make amends for the maid outfit. Yet somehow it always managed to be Christina that saw her in them first to compliment her. It was always restrained, her compliments, but she showed her later when she wore William’s skin just how much she really approved.

  


The cool morning air was a welcome respite to how hot her cheeks had felt while she fought back tears applying her lipstick. A thick red shade that popped audaciously from her full lips. She was a fan because it lasted through two sets and the shots before, between, and after with Sammy. She wondered if she would still go and perform at the bar, and she liked the freedom of having a choice. Maybe she could get gigs at places that paid more if she bought herself that shiny candy apple Fender Stratocaster she could have only previously dreamed about.

  


In spite of her North Side imaginings, Ruby was distinctly driving to the South Side. It wasn’t like anyone up there would know what to do with her hair anyway. The car was parked in front of the shop and she secretly enjoyed the collective silence that fell over the salon for a solid three seconds before it resumed with the latest tea; at least some of it that she could catch was about her. Where had she been? Where had she got that car? Was she still staying on the north side with that white boy? A smirk formed on her lips and she sat down in her usual chair with her usual stylist. She relished the feeling of having skilled fingers pulling through her hair to condition and style it just so, and suddenly she realized just how touch-starved she’d become in the last week. A week. Christina had spent her whole life feeling that way, and Ruby realized, if she wasn’t careful, she could fall into the same pattern if she left herself holed up with her depression.

  


While Ruby was getting her hair done, a certain half-sister of hers was on her way home from grabbing a few groceries for the house. She spotted the blue car almost immediately; it was by far the nicest car on the block, but moreover, she recognized it as being one of the cars that belonged to the blonde witch’s home. She hadn’t seen Ruby since the night of the ritual. It had taken a few days before she’d even worked up the nerve to call, and unsurprisingly, Ruby had ignored her call. Leti started to cross over to try and catch her in the hair salon, but she was a little too late.

  


Ruby exited the salon and got back in the car. She adjusted her scarf and put her sunglasses on before checking the mirror. She saw Leti there and chose to pretend like she hadn’t and pulled her car back out into traffic to make her way to the grocery store on the other side of town. Leti would have just followed her into the market here if she’d gone. Besides, she wanted the expensive cuts of meat and some wine to go with dinner, and in spite of the downright evil looks thrown her way, no one said anything. After all, it wasn’t uncommon for a maid to do a family’s grocery shopping since she would also be doing the cooking. As it turned out, Ruby didn’t give a damn what they thought of her or her reasons for being in that particular grocer, so long as no one interrupted her.

  


Back on the other side of town, Leti had made it back to the house and put up the groceries before she finally stamped her foot and announced, “This is bullshit. Can I take Woody? I am going over to that house and talking some sense into her so that she comes home.”

  


“Leticia,” Hippolyta said calmly, “don’t presume to know where home is for someone. It’s not always a place, sometimes it’s a person.”

  


“And you’re saying _ Christina _ was her person? Come on, Hippolyta, even you don’t believe that. Ruby’s not,” Leti shut her mouth and rolled the word around on her tongue for a moment before finishing, in a quieter tone “Ruby’s not gay, and I don’t know what that whole situation was, but...there’s no way.”

  


“A person is so much more than a label that other people give them,” the woman said and tugged on a blue strand of her own hair to illustrate the point. “Including Christina. It doesn’t matter how you saw it. You don’t share the same perspective.”

  


Leti sighed and shook her head. Hippolyta’s advice was sound, and she had absolutely no intention of listening to it. She grabbed her purse and left out the front door to take the reliable old station wagon on another tour of the richer, whiter part of town. 

  


The entire drive over she’d had the argument over and over with herself, supplying Ruby’s answers from her imagination, until she got fully worked up over it and ready for a fight. She knew that Ruby would hear the car when it pulled up because she could see that the windows were open from the street. Not that Leti had expected that Ruby would immediately come to a window or to the door, but it still rubbed her the wrong way that she didn’t. When she found that the gate was locked, it only served to irritate her further. Like she hadn’t spent the last week crying herself? As if she didn’t have a  _ baby _ she had to raise by herself? She had convinced herself that Ruby was being selfish by avoiding her. Fists were balled and at her side as she opted instead of going around to the back, to  _ climb the fucking fence _ .

  


Ruby heard it all happening--the heavy slam of the door, the rustle of the bushes, the swearing, another rustle of bushes that sounded entirely less graceful than the first and she leaned against the opposite counter with a glass of red wine in her hand and waited. It didn’t take long. Her sister, always with a flair for drama, didn’t bother using a balled-up fist to knock, no, Ruby sighed, that would be too normal. Instead, she heard the smack of an open palm against the heavy wood door while Leti yelled her name. She let her cause a ruckus for a solid two minutes before she set her glass down and walked to the door and pulled it open casually. As if the woman on the other side had not been hysterical for the last 120 seconds. Leti looked breathless. Ruby looked amused.

  


“Can I help you?” she asked. One hand held the knob of the door, ready to pull it shut if at any point Leti crossed the line and the other rested on her hip. She was still in the lovely dress she’d been wearing in town earlier, and up close it was more obvious that the dress was satin. It was usually a fabric reserved for evenings, but Ruby in her boldness was no longer interested in rules governing how and when she could exist. She would not be interrupted.

  


“Yeah, to start with you can tell me what the hell you’re still doing here,” Leti said and mimicked her posture. She placed a foot in front of the door though and shifted her weight so it would be harder to have it closed. Her hand also sat on her hip, the other on the door frame. She looked up at her sister, who had a height advantage anyway, but especially in heels. “You’re just acting like nothing happened. Like Tic didn’t--”

  


“Why do I care about Tic, Leti?” Ruby was the one who did the interrupting now. “What the fuck’s he ever done for me except knock up my sister and die because he thinks he fulfilled a prophecy.”

  


Leti lowered her voice and hissed, “He’s dead because that bitch you were sleeping with killed him.”

  


“Wasn’t much sleeping going on,” Ruby replied with an easy return, to which Leti growled, it didn’t stop Ruby, “He could have given her the book.”

  


“What? And let them have all the magic?” Leti looked affronted. Ruby didn’t blame her, considering her first thought had been  _ Fuck,  _ **_AND_ ** _ they have magic _ ?

  


“Christina would have given it back if--”

  


Leti cut her off and Ruby’s eye twitched in warning when Leti began to raise her voice. “The hell makes you think that, Ruby? What makes you think that you can just take her at her word?”

  


“Well to start with, you’re standing on my very nice and public porch making a scene and the neighbors can’t do shit about it; and secondly, your ass is still both alive and pregnant with a mark to make sure of it.” The last part was spoken more quietly so that said neighbors didn’t hear the rest of what she had to say.

  


Leti was silent in response to Ruby’s words, but her face wasn’t. When her sister didn’t move, Leti finally backed up a step and crossed her arms over her stomach. “Fine, can we just go inside and talk, please?”

  


“No, Christina already bought you a house, this one is mine.”

  


“Ruby!”

  


Her tongue popped against the roof of her mouth before she spoke, “Signed the papers yesterday. I got it all. The house, the cars, the land the estate is on, the bank accounts...”

  


Leti looked gobsmacked by the full breadth of it. Although Christina had goaded her while wearing her sister’s skin, that she had killed Ruby, Leti hadn’t been surprised when she found her alive. She had suspected Christina cared for Ruby—not enough to not do the ritual, but enough not to kill her. Hearing that Christina had made the effort to ensure that her estate was left solely to Ruby made it look more serious. Had Christina loved her sister? If she had, she loved ambition more, and that wasn’t forgivable. Neither was killing Tic, but that aside, Ruby deserved someone that loved her first.

  


Apparently, her expression had dulled the edge of Ruby’s temper, because, with a sigh, she opened the door wider and allowed her half-sister entrance. Leti wandered in, and though she’d been here before, it looked transformed. As luxurious as before, but something about Ruby’s presence in a place made it feel inviting. The windows were open on a perfect 68 ° day. The sheer curtains were pulled just enough to catch the breeze that flowed inside and billow away from the glass. It filled the room with ghosts of memories that were still too fresh to revisit. Music played from a record player that looked like it should have been ornamental more than functional and something was cooking—Leti could smell it, there was a crust to it, but it wasn’t quite done enough to give off a distinctly sweet or savory scent. She wondered if Christina had appreciated it--that Ruby felt like home. Maybe she had, and that’s why she’d left it all to her.

  


“I guess I should have expected you as soon as I put the meat pie in the oven. I swear you’d come across state lines when I ain’t heard from you in months the second I pulled it out,” all the hardness had leached out of Ruby’s voice. They had both lost someone they loved because someone they loved was headstrong, arrogant, and—well, they weren’t as different as they believed they were.

  


Leti’s stomach grumbled audibly when Ruby said the magic words, and both of them laughed. “Gotta get Little George started early on his auntie’s cooking,” her hand slid over her still-slender waist, though she knew it wouldn’t remain that way much longer. 

  


She wandered into the kitchen and picked up the bottle of wine out of habit but sat it back down as soon as she heard Ruby’s “Aht aht!”. The bottle was put back down and she made her way out of the kitchen into the rest of the house. Eventually, Leti made her way back to the basement door again and tried to open it. It was locked. She huffed in disappointment, but when she turned around she met her sister nose-to-nose. Leti shrieked, startled. “The fuck is wrong with you? Spending too much time in this creepy ass house.”

  


“You came here,” Ruby reminded her. The expression she wore was distrustful and displeased. “And you’re not allowed in there. You don’t have free reign in this house.”

  


“You act like it’s still Christina’s and you’re hiding her secrets. This is your house--”

  


“Exactly,  _ my _ house. And whether or not she has secrets, they’re still mine to keep. Not for you to go snooping around in places you weren’t asked to go,” there was an edge in her voice that hadn’t been there before and Leti slid from between her sister and the door leading down to the basement. Ruby wasn’t done with her though. “But you asked me to go down there. To steal her blood. To betray her.”

  


“To save Tic!”

  


“To save your own ass because you didn’t have the sense to wear a condom, Leti, and you don’t want to raise that baby alone when you can’t even take care of yourself!” That cut deep. She could see it on her younger sister’s face. It wasn’t just that Ruby had gone for the throat with that comment, it was how  _ true _ it was. Dark eyes filled with tears, and for a split second, Ruby wondered if she went too far. But the nagging hollow inside her chest assured her that she could never go too far ever again.

  


“Did you ever think that maybe I loved him? That I actually loved him?” Leti demanded, barely above a whisper.

  


“Did you consider the same?” Ruby’s voice was cold, she knew that Leti hadn’t.

  


One of them would have to give, and Leti realized it would have to be her. At least for today. The odds were already stacked against her now. Her shoulders slumped and she looked down. “No,” she confessed, “I didn’t.”

  


“You never do.”

  


Ruby wasn’t going to make it easy for her. Leti pursed her lips and pressed them together to bite back every smart ass response that immediately sprang forward. “You’re right, I don’t. But that’s why I’m here. Hippolyta thinks there’s a way to bring him back. We might have to wait until Georgie is born, but...there’s a really good chance.”

  


“So what do you need from me? Because you have the Book of Names, but you still came here to discuss it with me--which means there’s something in this house that you think I’m going to hand over to make sure your little spell is a success.” 

  


The delivery was barbed in a way that Leti wasn’t used to from her sister, even when they fussed. But again, the salt ground into the wound was that Ruby was right. “We--I--” she amended, because Hippolyta really had no skin in the game other than the wisdom and ability to help, “I still need Christina’s blood. Hippolyta thinks that with a drop of her blood, and Georgie’s that maybe she can manipulate the ritual backward and we can save Tic.”

  


Ruby froze and a hot buzzing burned in her ears and collapsed like waves down into her chest until she vibrated. Was that what hope felt like when there had been a complete absence of it before? “And Christina? Could it save Christina?” her voice sounded more desperate than she wanted it to, and she had her answer before Leti said anything because she saw the look on her face.

  


“No, we need a body to be able to channel the soul back into it. But Christina’s body was…” Leti swallowed, she could see the violence building in Ruby’s eyes. “It was…well, we can fix Tic’s. There’s ah…there’s no fixing Christina Braithwhite.” 

  


Anger. Red, hot, uncontrollable. It was fully in her grasp like a bolt of chaos itself. She also hadn’t known the details of her lover’s death but hearing it from Leti? The Mark of Cain might be the thing that got her out of that house alive. Grief burst through like gasoline into the inferno and made it explode. How dare she give her hope for even a second? Tears that hadn’t been present before ran freely down dark cheeks. Her body visibly shook. “Get. Out.”

  


“Ruby please, I’m sorry about Christina, but I need this, we need this. Maybe with Tic back we can try more powerful spells…”

  


“Leti you’re a damn fool!” Ruby somehow managed not to break into a sob. “Talkin’ about raising a damned zombie-Tic, and my dumbass standing here crying because you can’t do it to Christina. They’re  _ dead _ , Leti. Dead. You can’t just put a soul back into a dead body. It’s not how it works. This is our new normal, and you need to get used to it,” she pointed a trembling finger when she said it.

  


The pettiness came out, as it was wont to do, “That’s easy for you to say when you have more money than the entire south side of Chicago combined,” Leti bit the ends of her words off to sharpen them.

  


But Ruby was not interested in being turned into the villain, not today, not over this, not after everything she had lost because of Leti’s selfishness and Tic’s self-assured stupidity. “The meat pie in the oven is done. Take it with you. Don’t say I never gave you anything.” The dismissal was a surprise de-escalation, but it was for Ruby’s benefit, not Leti’s. The meat pie was for Leti’s, and more specifically, Georgie, Hippolyta, and Dee’s benefit. Had she known the rest of the details of Christina’s death, she might not have been as generous. But truthfully, it wasn’t like she was going to eat it after that conversation.

  


Leti took the reprieve rather than push it. They had time to change her mind, Tic was being preserved in an alternate universe where Hippolyta had stashed the body in an alien-looking pod that stopped time inside of it. It kept his body from decomposing while they worked on a solution. She just had to convince her sister of it. The casserole dish she took with her was not the victory she wanted, but it was one she was happy to claim.

  


Ruby barely moved while she listened to Leti leave. It wasn’t until she heard Woody’s engine rumble off into nothingness that she took a noticeable breath. It felt like being ripped open all over again. Every terrible image she could come up with (and there were many) she pictured Christina in it, which cast the white witch into some of the most gruesome black victim’s places. One after the other the morbid reel played through her mind until she thought she would go crazy. 

  


She carefully closed all of the windows in the house so that the neighbors didn’t think something was amiss. The glass was foregone and she took the whole bottle of wine with her to the bedroom. It would have been less pathetic in her opinion if she’d drank in the tub again, or even in bed, but that wasn’t where she drank. No, she crawled into the closet with her bottle and sat with her back against the wall, pulling clothes out of the basket that were meant to be washed. It was a mix of both Christina’s wardrobes. A starched white shirt was picked up and lifted so that she could bury her face in it and wail. 

  


It felt impossible to catch her breath when her sobs didn’t hitch together enough to hiccup any oxygen. With her free hand, she beat the floor next to her, and she beat the wall behind her, and occasionally she beat her chest to remind herself to breathe. Ruby didn’t know what to do with that pain. She was still a woman who wanted what she wanted, but what she wanted was no longer attainable. 

  


Eventually, the combination of crying and alcohol got the best of her and she fell asleep cuddling the laundry. Her nose burrowed into the shirt again and this time she inhaled a deep breath successfully.  _ William _ , it felt like an epiphany that was just out of reach.

  


There would be no avoiding the hangover the next morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bathe in the emotions! The action picks up in the next two chapters.


	3. Tried to Change the Ending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruby tries out a new kind of freedom and leans into her own magic.

In spite of how poorly her first attempt at reconciliation had gone, efforts since then had not been as wasted. The key, Leti found, had not been mentioning Tic, Christina, the ritual, magic, or anything that had happened since springtime. They also had to avoid discussion of their mother because that turned nasty too. It left shallow topics and old stories up to be retold and reinterpreted through the lens of age. Leti didn’t mind it though. 

They didn’t talk much about her pregnancy because it strayed too close to the forbidden topics. Hippolyta wished they would so that Leti had someone else to whine to about her morning sickness. But like clockwork, Hippolyta had water ready to pour over mint tea to quell her nausea. Eventually, Ruby had brought a large bag of peppermint candies for Leti to keep in her purse, particularly for church services.

Religion and its artifice wasn’t something that Ruby bothered with. As it turned out, she did still continue playing music at Sammy’s bar on the weekends. She liked the socialization that it offered. Each time, all the tips she made she gave to Sammy at the end of the night with a wink and told him to build her a decent stage. Perhaps instead of finding a more upscale club to play in, she could help build this one into exactly the kind of place she’d want to perform.

In return, and after a few late _late_ conversations over bourbon, Sammy took her with him to the only place he loved more than his bar. The drag bar was a new experience for Ruby, but she embraced it, and him, enthusiastically. She watched Sammy shine like a diamond and he twirled across the floor, applauded, loved, and accepted as he was. The clientele was from all walks of life because even within separated communities, they weren’t accepted, and so came here to sparkle among the like minded where a new family was cultivated.

She wondered--could she have brought Christina here? Ruby let herself get lost in a daydream. Would Christina have worn a suit? She cut such a fine shape in them as William, and when she dressed in black slacks, a white lace top, and a black vest, it was easy to make the leap mentally to what she would have looked like in a suit tailored to her long limbs and slender frame. Ruby bet Christina would have bought her a new dress for the occasion and given it to her as herself. She imagined the slightly uncomfortable and nervous expression on the blonde’s face as they moved into a new stage in their relationship. It wouldn’t be the first time they had gone anywhere together. The fateful car crash had happened after going to a drive-in showing of _Rebel Without A Cause_ after Ruby had cooked an amazing dinner. It would, however, be the first time that they were so publicly together. She imagined how the mirrorball twisting above would flash in steely blue eyes when they danced together for the first time as themselves, in a place where no one would look at them strangely. It felt almost real enough to touch before it disappeared in a swirl of white feathers and sequins.

It was too painful, and she didn’t return. Not because she hadn’t enjoyed it, but because it hurt too much to imagine the life that she and Christina realistically could have had. She could have been William’s wife during the day, and Christina’s lover under the pulsing lights every Wednesday night. 

Not long after that, she found herself back in the basement, reading through Christina’s detailed notes on magic. It started simple, she taught herself with Christina’s work how to conjure black butterflies that glided around the lab before disappearing in dusty sparks which faded into the nothingness from whence they’d come. She discovered as she practiced, that she could find the rhythm and music in it. The way the language of Adam and its staccato sounds fit together to create the masterpiece. She learned it like she learned a new song. The chords first, the lyrics second, and the timing third so that she could play with how it worked the best. After her first successes fell into place, it started to feel natural. Like she’d always known magic, like she’d always known music. Slowly, she became more confident, and finally one afternoon she held a vial of red liquid in her hands and watched how it swirled in the low light of the lab. A success or an utter disaster was yet to be determined.

It was the first of several nights Ruby spent as a white man. William went first to Sammy’s bar and had a couple of drinks. He inquired about the woman who had been singing there about a month ago, and described Ruby to him. Sammy stared at William for a long time, eyeing him as though he would look through him. Ruby had to actively try not to giggle when the bartender commented on how William wasn’t really Ruby’s ‘type’. William said he wasn’t so sure of that and left a sizable tip.

Ruby wore William’s skin out dancing, in white clubs and black ones, straight ones and gay ones. She understood by the end of it why Christina had found her so fascinating. There were not a lot of people who even pretended they would say no to William. Men, women, particularly white women who thought he smelled like old money that they wanted to get their hands on were all more than willing to dance the night away and go home with him, if that’s what he wanted. On a few occasions, Ruby considered fucking the women, and exactly one man she’d spent the evening dancing with, just to see how it would feel from that side of things. But she never did.

Petty. Damned petty. Leti wasn’t the only sister capable, and Ruby was riding the high of the unabashed freedom of being a rich white man. He parked the silver Benz outside of Leti’s house just before 10 PM. He watched shadows move behind curtains until one of the curtains opened up enough that he knew he’d been seen. When the porch light came on, he drove off before the door could open.

Leti called the following morning and Ruby gaslit the shit out of her sister who was hysterically insisting on what she saw. It was the first good belly laugh she’d had since she woke up, and she didn’t feel bad that it was at Leti’s expense. She’d come clean about it. One day. For the time being, that was a fun little trick to keep in her back pocket. As tempting as the prospect was to just step into William’s shoes (literally) and navigate the rest of her life as a very successful lie, it was still just that--a lie--and Ruby had no interest in living as a white man.

It did, however, open up the conversation about magic, a subject that she had avoided discussing with her sister since their last big blow out. She didn’t give any indication to Leti that she knew anything about it, that she’d practiced using Christina’s notes and succeeded. Her little sister had it in her heart that she was powerful, and Ruby didn’t have any interest in taking that from her. She’d long outgrown caring that she was the older sister who was overlooked for her younger, lighter skinned half sibling with a knack for being the center of attention.

So they practiced together, little by little. Leti started out excited about the prospect and then withdrew as Ruby pushed her further than the limits of her comfort. “Your child’s father died for us to have this magic, Leti,” and when that didn’t work, she switched to, “Don’t get scared now, you weren’t scared when you killed Christina,” and she _almost_ felt bad at how well it worked because she could successfully goad her sister into trying just about anything. There was also the promise of perhaps the two of them becoming strong enough to actually perform a spell that would return Tic to his body without Christina’s blood, or waiting on little George to be born to give his own.

And then one day, out of nowhere, they leaned over a table reading over a spell when Leti paused and Ruby looked at her curiously. “I didn’t think there were any incomplete spells in the book,” Leti explained her confusion and looked up at her sister.

Ruby didn’t know what Leti meant, there was nothing incomplete about the spell, the words continued to flow on the page. Her brows furrowed together, but instead of saying anything, she flipped the page to check. The writing continued and she looked over at Leti who shook her head and shrugged, confirming there was nothing on that side of the page either. Her nails dug into the pages toward the back of the book and she opened it. Blank. She started going backwards several pages at a time until words started to appear to her again. Still, they weren’t clear, and blurred and twisted until she got closer to the middle of the book when everything started making sense again. She tapped a page and asked Leti what it said.

“I can’t read it,” she responded, her face screwed up. “It’s like the words are moving and the letters are changing.” Ruby began to develop a theory. They returned to the page where the spell writing had faded for Leti and Ruby read the words aloud, following them with her finger so that Leti knew she wasn’t making it up. “What do you think it means?” Leti’s voice gave away her nerves. She didn’t want to lose the ability to do magic, to protect her family.

“I think,” Ruby spoke in a measured voice, “that it’s a safety measure. You can’t read certain spells.” But what was the metric? How did it know? Surely the spell that Leti had used to bind Christina had been more powerful than either of them were ready for. But Leti hadn’t got that knowledge or that power by herself. “We can try it and see what happens,” she shrugged a single shoulder. “I can read it, so just follow my lead?” Leti agreed and Ruby took the book instead of her sister to start the incantation. 

With Ruby leading, she got to adopt her preferred cadence for the words and Leti repeated the words after her--twice, and on the second time through for Leti she would start the next line and watched her sister’s face pucker as she tried the verbal equivalent of rubbing her stomach while patting her head. But it worked and Ruby felt the rush of magic flow into her and out of her like a perfect exchange, as easy and natural as breathing. What would Christina think of her now that there _was_ magic to see? 

It took Leti collapsing in her peripheral for the whooshing in her ears to quiet and to realize her sister had been hollering for her to stop. Hippolyta appeared a moment later because the whole house had trembled, and it was her that was level headed enough to get Leti up off the ground while she clutched her burgeoning midsection.

Ruby followed a few minutes later and was surprised when Dee was blocking her at the top of the stairs. She tried to get past her, but the mechanical arm had a grip on the door frame that Ruby couldn’t break. “Dee, move, I need to check on Leti.”

“I know what you’re trying to do,” Dee said, her eyes looked as dead as the tone of her voice. “Don’t.”

“Child I ain’t trying to do anything you need to worry about. We’re trying to protect ourselves. Now move so I can go to my sister,” she gestured to the kitchen again to indicate where she wanted to go and her tone suggested that she would go through the non-mechanical part of Dee if the young woman didn’t give her a wide berth to get out of the basement. Dee stared her down for a few more tense breaths before she dropped her arm. Dee’s behavior perturbed her, but she’d acted strange toward her every time she’d come over. Hippolyta said she was still recovering from everything that happened over the summer; Ruby felt like there was more going on with that, she just couldn’t figure out _what_ it was exactly.

Leti was fine after some water and a cool rag on the back of her neck. She assured Ruby that it wasn’t her fault and confirmed that perhaps some things weren’t visible for a reason. To Ruby’s surprise, she actually agreed to let Ruby take the book with her after Ruby promised she wouldn’t ‘trying anything stupid’.

The rest of November was a lot of trial and error with different spells. She didn’t know why at Thanksgiving she lied to Leti and said she couldn’t read anything else in the book past where she’d read before. It felt like a secret she didn’t want to divulge. She didn’t want it questioned or examined, but truthfully, she could read spells in that book that she had no business or interest messing with, but the one she wanted--the one _Leti_ really wanted--was still unclear. Letters would click into place and then change in front of her eyes. She took notes and realized why the cyphers had come into existence. The Order had been messing with magic they weren’t strong enough to control so they had to keep notes of the brief moments of clarity provided before it was obscured again by the magic that protected the book and reader. It certainly explained why they had managed to destroy various homes in the countryside. It wasn’t lost on Ruby that she was on the path to doing the same thing.

It was three o’clock in the morning and Ruby woke up when her chin slid off her hand where her head had been propped up. Dark lashes fluttered and she looked around the lab sleepily. When had she become Christina? The most likely answer was that she was still trying to find a way to be close to her, and magic was the best way. It seemed a living breathing thing, and each time a black butterfly turned to dust, it shimmed in the light like a fleeting glimpse of white-blonde strands of hair that used to appear and catch the light whenever Ruby would change the linens and shake Christina’s shed hair from the pillowcases and sheets before she washed them. 

She climbed the stairs slowly and locked the basement before she face-planted into bed. It still smelled the same because Ruby continued to mist the bed with William and Christina’s respective signature scents. Each night she fell asleep surrounded by the assurance that she wouldn’t sleep by herself, that her lover would come to bed soon, and each morning, she woke up alone. It wasn’t healthy, maybe, but considering how well she was holding everything else together, Ruby was content to grieve in her own way and if she wasn’t ready to move on, no one was going to drag her through to the other side of it. The first ten days that she didn’t cry she’d kept count, after that she’d lost track so by all accounts, she seemed to be getting better in spite of her abysmal sleep schedule and bedtime rituals. 

The next significant fight happened in the middle of December, almost three months had passed since the Autumn Equinox. It had started out pleasant enough: Ruby wanted to host Christmas at the Hyde Park house, and both Hippolyta and Leti had been eager to accept. Leti had tried to decorate, but truthfully, into her second trimester she ran out of steam and patience with her much rounder middle getting in the way and a fear of falling keeping her off ladders. Even Hippolyta had trouble getting into festive spirits. Ruby didn’t share the same lack of enthusiasm. Her home was decked out with the biggest tree she’d seen in her life inside a house. It took her three full days to decorate it and she’d been wrapping presents for two weeks already.

They were in the middle of making plans for who to invite and who would be assigned to what tasks when Dee walked in. The young woman pulled off the gloves and jacket layered over the rest of her clothes and tossed them on the back of a chair. She leaned over it and tipped the chair back with her forearms--one skin, one bionic. “What’s goin’ on here?” she asked with a smile, eyes brighter than they had been in a long time.

“We’re making Christmas plans, Ruby is going to have everyone over to her house!” Hippolyta sounded over-excited. She was still trying to make up for not being present when Dee got hexed. Things had gotten better, but it still wasn’t the same between them.

Dee’s nose wrinkled in response and she let the chair drop back down with a loud _snap_ against the tile. “Unh-uh, I ain’t goin’! I didn’t kill her to go eat in her damn dining room.”

Silence. Ruby wasn’t sure if time had actually stopped because it wasn’t just her that was frozen. Hippolyta and Leti were both arrested of movement or sound. The sound of three chairs scraping back against the floor in unison broke the silence. Leti took Dee and moved her out of the room and Hippolyta went for Ruby at the same time as Ruby had stood up and started forward.

She felt the older woman’s surprisingly strong hands on her shoulders but she couldn’t register what was being said to her. All she heard were sirens, all she saw was red, and all she felt was absolutely _murderous_. The words were right there on the tip of her tongue but Leti’s power-waddle to get Dee out of her line of sight didn’t give her the chance to find out if she had the restraint not to hex a child. Her jaw was clenched so tight she was certain she’d break a tooth. Her gaze was set hard on the door where Leti had taken Dee before dark eyes snapped back to the blue haired woman holding her. Ruby could see a lot of emotion in Hippolyta’s face and eyes. She was apologetic and pleading that Ruby didn’t push it further; either because she was worried that Ruby would hurt Dee, or that she would have to hurt Ruby to keep it from happening.

Fortunately, Ruby had no interest in testing which of those theories was more accurate. Instead, she broke from her grasp in the opposite direction and left the house without a word but with a Leti-style slam of the door. She was glad that it hadn’t snowed recently enough for the walk to be slippery and impede her hasty retreat. Every time it felt like she’d really gotten a handle on her pain, something else ripped her wide open again. The lump in her throat was so solid and hot she choked on it a few times trying not to throw up on the leather seats. She drove with the windows down in the middle of December to try and quell her nausea as she retreated back to her home.

The house welcomed her warmly with twinkling lights along the fence line and delicately placed throughout the shrubbery. It didn’t do much to ease the weight in her spirit until she walked in and turned the lock behind herself. Ruby leaned back against the door and sighed deeply. With everyone locked outside, she could enjoy her house and her magic, and her memories. Her eyes closed and she tried to ignore the stinging prickle behind her gold-dusted lids. The ache of emptiness was almost too much. What wouldn’t she have given to have Christina there to criticize how she decorated the tree while William fucked her under it each night.

The sound of her heels hitting the solid floor still managed to fall into rhythm with the song that was playing softly on the radio. She opened the basement and went downstairs. She’d even decorated down there to some extent and she had strongly considered leaving the delicate lights up all year because it brought some much-needed warmth to the otherwise dreary work area--which also was not as dreary as it had been before. It no longer had the same neat organization but looked more like a musician’s layer with various things pinned to walls and discarded pages of failed spells littering the table. 

On the workbench, the Book of Adam lay in wait. Ruby flipped it open, ready to delve into more research but stared in shock when there was no more deciphering needed. It read like a recipe with the letters shimmering at the edges. It was how Ruby knew they wouldn’t stay. She read it over and over before she started writing it down in her own shorthand that she’d developed while trying to keep up with the ever-changing book. At that moment, at least, she was powerful enough that she could have brought someone back from the dead. All she needed was a body. Ruby bit down on her lower lip and looked across the lab at the blue curtain pulled around William. Her eyes went next to the lunar calendar that Christina had created. The Winter Solstice was less than a week away. Timing was everything for a spell that powerful and she could use all the help she could get to create her own Christmas miracle.

**December 22, 1955**

There was only one chance to get it right once William was removed from the oxygen and circulation machines. Because of the technicalities of moving a mostly dead body in a car and the anxiety of being caught with a mostly dead body in a car, Ruby decided instead to rearrange the lab so that she had room to draw the necessary circle and runes that would empower the spell. She sat in the middle of the mostly complete circle in rolled-up jeans that weren’t particularly flattering as they weren’t cut for women and barefoot despite the cold. She was covered in what looked like chalk, but it was actually ground down bone dust forming the majority of her circle with the runes drawn in blood from a bowl she cradled in her thighs as she double-checked the runes against her notes. The spell had faded in and out of clarity and while she recognized the inherent danger of it, there was nothing that would have stopped her. She missed the part where she was supposed to consider if Christina would want to be brought back, without magic, into a body that was not her own. It was selfish, but that wasn’t how she saw it. She just wanted her partner back and this was the best solution, wasn’t it?

She dressed the body, barely. She draped a sumptuous robe around limbs. Christina’s body would have been much easier. William was heavy, but she managed. His chest was exposed and the Mark of Cain emblazoned across his chest looked like a dim lavender scar on skin that was nearly gray--and that was before she pulled out the tubes and cut off the oxygen. There was no wedding white dress for Ruby in that moment or rows of partially melted pillar candles, no theatrics. But there was unmitigated hope that bolstered her stubborn determination. There was a last check of the lock for the basement door and a final once-over of her circle and runes before she opened the ritual with a blessing. Ruby circled the body, reading the incantation and drawing the magic into herself. It wasn’t a short ritual, and she braced herself for a marathon instead of a sprint.

As she continued to chant, the bluish body started to regain some color, still pale, but with pink undertones instead of purple ones. Magic was exhausting. Christina made it look easy, but this was not easy. Ruby was breathless, and beads of sweat rolled down her temples. It was the longest, hardest, and most complicated chorus she’d composed. Like her music, her magic was expressive. Leti took a solemn approach to her rituals, Ruby wanted it to feel like something. Her hand hovered, palm up and shaking over William’s chest. It felt like something all right. The edge of pain coupled uncomfortably with the nausea of anxiety, which in turn compounded itself against the raw toll that powerful magic took out of the caster.

Ruby felt it when it finally started to happen. Magic crawled down her arm like creeping vines that nested in the palm of her hand. She closed her hand around it; Ruby’s magic felt tangible, it felt powerful. _She_ felt powerful as she struck his chest thrice with a balled fist--call down the spirit, call down the heart, reclaim a soul. The last time she made contact her palm was flat, infusing her own magic into the chest of the dead man. _Boom boom boom clap_. 

It felt suddenly like she was ripped out of herself, the only thing she could compare it to would be going through the transformation instantly, like ripping off a bandaid in the worst way possible. Magic extracted its own pound of flesh, and for Ruby that felt like reliving every tear, choked sob, hollow echoed screams in the middle of the night...all at once. She swayed on her feet and caught herself on the table as she tried desperately to get through the deafening vibrations and hum of having that much energy sundered from her.

Beneath her palm, a heartbeat. When she felt it, her head snapped up and her eyes locked with a pair of icy blues.

“Ruby?” the voice was rough, almost unintelligible after so long of not being used. It was followed by a throaty roar as the scar of the Mark of Cain turned a brilliant red, rebranding the body it clung to. As it turned out, being healed from nearly a year of physical atrophy was no walk in the park. He rolled off the table and onto the cold ground, but still within the circle. He choked and gasped for air as fibers and flesh came back and hooked uncomfortably into the new soul that resided in the body.

“Will--Christina?” she cried frantically, as she moved around the table to find the blonde man on the ground. She hit the ground hard enough with her knees that she would regret it later. Tears flowed freely as he looked up at her. Ruby’s hands cupped either side of his jaw. She was speechless. She couldn’t believe it had worked. 

Christina had commandeered William’s body plenty of times, but it felt different to sit where the spirit met the bone and not just as a disguise. There was little time to think of that though when Ruby was there in front of her, him? Christina didn’t know how to designate her own thoughts and her memories were still coalescing. The easiest thought though was action. Strong arms pulled Ruby against a warming chest and squeezed her as tight as she could stand. Ruby held on just as tightly. 

And oh how she cried.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work in progress, but all the chapters are outlined and I'm about halfway finished with chapter two. This is the first fanfic I've posted in over a decade. All mistakes are my own. Shout out to the discord group chat that got me through the whole outline with tears in my eyes laughing about Christina at the cookout.


End file.
